Freedom of association plays a prominent role in Tocqueville’s political theory. This distinguishes him from the liberal discourse of his time, which discussed freedom of speech but largely neglected freedom of association. As Arthur Goldhammer has shown, Tocqueville’s argument in favour of freedom of association is strongly influenced by his analysis of the Old Regime (Goldhammer 2009, 74–84), where he refers to Montesquieu’s defence of the estates and, at the same time, rejects them as unsuitable for democracy.